Yang Wen-jen calls on Mirror Weekly to retract false reports and clear the name of organic farmers and Sweetheart Ranch

Text / Yang Wen-jen (PhD student in the Department of Applied Economics (Agricultural Economics) at National Chung Hsing University, manager of the NCHU Organic Farmers' Market)

Today, farming friends forwarded several Mirror Weekly reports from a series titled "Organic Farms Faking Environmentalism," which targeted Sweetheart Ranch in Tainan, currently fighting land expropriation, with multiple reports containing false information and even descending into personal attacks. Not only is the timing of publication suspicious, but the information is full of errors, damaging the reputation of individual farmers and harming the development of the organic farming community as a whole. (To read about Sweetheart Ranch's protest actions, please click here)

The Mirror Weekly series raised multiple doubts about Sweetheart Ranch, including: that the ranch is only in an "organic transition period" and not "truly organic," that its demand for high prices is "fraud," and that Sweetheart Ranch's resistance to the expropriation of the Taisugar organic park is "fake tree protection," portraying itself as "a victim of trampled land justice," while the reporter also strongly defended Tainan City government officials.

Regarding the expropriation of the Taisugar park where Sweetheart Ranch is located for green energy development, there has already been other detailed discussion. This article will address the parts of the series concerning "fake organic, real fraud" to clarify matters, so that the media does not provide false information